


yes sir, mr. johnson

by squiirby



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: 2019 and im writing portal fanfiction babeyyyyy, Angst, Angst and Feels, Gen, Robots, do people still like portal?, no?, ok i'm doing it anyway, there is literally not a happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-29 10:40:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19828444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squiirby/pseuds/squiirby
Summary: Come now, Caroline,murmured the flashback, a voice she recognized instantly, one she knew was burned into her brain forever. Warm, calloused hands smoothed down the red fabric, the place on her neck where knuckles had brushed against skin tingling with the memory.Don’t you worry about me. Just go out there and wear that pretty smile of yours, and everything will be fine.





	yes sir, mr. johnson

**Author's Note:**

> so! anyone remember the portal games? no? well, i love them, so here's some shit i wrote for it a few months ago.

Caroline was tired.

Tired of the lies, the experiments, the Science. It was all becoming too much; but then again, it had always been too much for her, just the slightest bit. She was a woman of knowledge, an entrepreneur dedicated to learning new things, but even she could taste the bitterness of a project gone sour.

That was what scared her, really. It was so much more than a project. The _things_ she’d witnessed, seen, been a part of, _done-_ it felt rather like she’d committed a crime and was bound to the mafia. She’d sworn a blood oath the first time she’d taken that elevator, and she’d known there was no going back.

She found herself wishing they’d got around to building that damn time machine.

Just two days earlier, at exactly 8:32 AM on a Monday morning, Cave Johnson had vanished entirely. She’d went up to his room and the bed had been empty, but neatly made, without so much as a note (perhaps that was wishful thinking) or even the slightest hint that it had once been lived in. 

No one spoke of it.

It was as if he’d just simply ceased to exist.

_But that wasn’t her problem, was it?_

Caroline’s eyes strayed to the entrance she had been supposed to walk through about five minutes ago. She’d stopped, and thought deeply to herself for a long moment. Why would one of their main technicians want to see _her,_ of all people? Her, _Caroline_ , Johnson’s “soulful devoted assistant”. What purpose did she have beyond him, really?

Something in her flared up- a spark of emotion stinging the back of her throat. 

_I could be so much more._

She swallowed it down and looked back at the doorway. The white fluorescent lights of the cryogenics research lab illuminated the dark hallway that stretched out before her, outlining her slender, lengthy shadow on the floor. 

The scientists down in the Mainframe were probably getting tired of her tardiness, but Caroline allowed herself another moment to pause and reflect. She reached up for the red necktie below her chin, running a pale finger along the knot that she hadn’t undone for several days now. The memory of the last time she’d tied it brought a small smile to her face, for a brief, passing moment of nostalgia.

 _Come now, Caroline,_ murmured the memory, a voice she recognized instantly, one she knew was burned into her brain forever. Warm, calloused hands smoothed down the red fabric, the place on her neck where knuckles had brushed against skin tingling with the memory. _Don’t you worry about me. Just go out there and wear that pretty smile of yours, and everything will be fine._

_Everything will be fine..._

Caroline straightened and firmed her mouth into a tight line, taking a step out of the doorway and beginning the long trek down the south wing corridor that led straight to the Mainframe. They’d dubbed it that for quite a good reason- the very Heart of Aperture, the center of the entity they’d created, the living, breathing apex of Science.

The silence was filled with the soft _clack-clack_ of her heels against the floors, and the gentle shift of fabric and the soft, even breaths she was taking. Many years had gone into perfecting the regulation of breathing; an important aspect in even the least delicate of situations, keeping a cool head was vital to almost everything.

It was a long, long walk.

The silence stretched on forever, and she’d only encountered a few faces here and there- wide-eyed, confused faces, all employees wondering what was going to happen next. There was a forlorn, solemn tone in the air, hanging heavy like a cloud full of rain over a golden field. Caroline kept her eyes focused forward, watching doorways pass by, her chin tilted slightly upwards and her slate-gray eyes focused on the route before her.

For some strange reason, it felt a bit like she was on a one-way march.

Eventually, the hallway began to branch off into longer, broader corridors, and she knew what they were. They were the Chambers- hundreds, _thousands_ of them, all likely empty and wilting into disuse thanks to the state the facility was in. Something in her soul twinged- a sense of _that shouldn’t be happening_ and _wait, there’s still Science to do._

She walked a bit faster now, and the branching white-walled hallways turned into a blur of indistinguishable shapes. There was a murmur of voices below the sound of her own movement, and even lower than that, almost below her range of hearing, was the sounds of _Aperture itself_ ; soft whirrs and clicks, the testimony to how _alive_ the place was.

Then, she stopped short.

The long hallway ended, opening up into a giant, circular chamber, not like the other Chambers; this one felt different, somehow, as it well should have. This was the heart of the laboratories, heartless though it was, and seemed to be unusually one of the most active places in the facility. 

But today, there was something different in the Mainframe.

A large, shrouded Thing hung from the ceiling in the center of the room, covered in some sort of fabric, hiding everything but It’s general shape from her eyes. A flashing monitor was hooked up to the Thing, cords running from it and up under the cloth.

Suddenly, and without warning, Caroline felt slightly sick at the sight of it, her stomach doing a somersault as she wondered what could possibly be underneath. Less suddenly, she realized that she might not be _entirely_ wrong for dreading this summoning, and her mouth suddenly felt very, very dry. 

Across the room, in a glass-rimmed alcove built into the wall, were the shapes of three or four men, all wearing identical white outfits, hunched over glowing monitors and all engaged in some sort of conversation, their words muffled by the twenty-millimeter-thick glass. Caroline stopped near the entrance, keeping a careful watch on the Thing under the cloth and instead looking up at the Mainframe control room, hoping to catch their attention.

It worked within the first minute, thankfully. One of the scientists looked up from his work and caught sight of her, instantly alerting his other companions. She watched in silence as two of them descended from the stairwell, appearing moments later out of a door near the ground labeled “DO NOT ENTER: EMPLOYEES ONLY”.

The taller of the two strode across the room, his shorter friend tagging behind, almost as if reluctant. Caroline recognized the first instantly as he stuck out a hand for her to shake, which she slowly accepted; Doctor Wright, one of the chief engineers at Aperture. He had shockingly gray hair and a wrinkled face, a few too many lines around his eyes, but Caroline was far from concerned about _him._

“Caroline, thank you for coming,” Wright said, a smile on his face that looked entirely complementary and with a chilling amount of _nothing_ behind it. He gestured towards the shorter man- in an identical lab coat with a nametag that read SMITH, he gave her a look like a frightened rabbit, which went quite well with his shaggy dark hair and deer-in-the-headlights expression on his face. “This is one of our neuroscientists- probably haven’t met him before, kind of a behind-the-curtain sort of guy.”

She inclined her head at Wright, politely, before turning her attention to Smith. Instantly, the man looked away, as if he’d done something horribly wrong in front of her. This set off instant warning bells, but however, she simply returned her attention to the engineer. “Thank you, Wright,” she replied, keeping her voice steady and calm. “I hope you don’t mind me asking...why, exactly, am I here?”

There was a pause.

Smith and Wright exchanged a glance, before the two pairs of eyes returned to look at her. “See, that’s a bit of a... _sensitive_ topic,” Wright began, his already aged voice sounding at least ten years older. “As you know, Mr. Johnson is...”

He stopped. Caroline felt her joints go stiff, her shoulders squaring up and muscles tightening in response to the steadily growing unease. That was the first time anyone had mentioned Cave since... _Monday morning._

“...gone,” he settled for, giving Smith a quick look, with a meaning she couldn’t interpret. The younger man turned on his heel and headed straight for the stairwell door like a bullet, nearly tipping Caroline’s cool over the edge. “He’s given us some...very, very specific instructions.” Wright looked undeniably _uncomfortable_ , as if he’d done something awful. It was terrifyingly similar to the look Smith had worn only moments ago.

_Oh, God._

_Cave, what have you done?_

There was a sharp click and a _hiss,_ and Caroline whipped around, just in time to see the doors to the Mainframe slowly close. Her heart began to beat in a desperate, erratic tattoo, as she spun around to face Wright once more, who was now wearing a very solemn, unreadable look on his face.

Instead of responding to the horror that was clearly spreading across her face, Wright reached up and pressed a glowing button on an earpiece hidden behind his great mop of hair, opening his mouth to speak. “Smith, boot up the computer.”

A voice came over the PA. “Yes, sir,” came Smith’s voice, sounding a little shaky. As a sort of response, the monitor next to the Thing in the center of the room booted up, flashing a blank blue screen, littered with words she could only barely make out.

_Upload....0% complete._

And then, things began to make sense.

_Oh, Mr. Johnson..._

“What...are you doing?” Caroline finally choked out, her vocal chords seeming to finally detangle themselves from their knotted pile at the base of her neck. “Whatever Ca- whatever _he_ told you to do, please reconsider-”

“Sorry, Caroline,” said the doctor, his bushy gray eyebrows furrowing deeply. “I promise, this is for the greater good. It’s for _Science_.” He reached out for Caroline’s balled fist, but she jerked away, taking a few good steps back from him. With a grim look on his face, he tapped the earpiece once more. “Alright, come get her.”

Instantly the thunder of footsteps echoed nearby, and her fight or flight instinct kicked in. Panicked, she searched the entire room for a weapon, for _anything-_ but the entire Mainframe lay barren of anything on the floor, save the terrible Thing beneath the cloth and a single metal chair facing it, a bit like an interrogation room, bolted to the ground.

She backed up, searching everywhere, _anywhere_ for an escape, but it was already far too late. Two of the scientists had burst through the employee’s only door and were striding swiftly across the room towards her, both wearing almost identical expressions of guilt and distaste. Wright was crossing his arms, shaking his head slowly as he walked back to the doorway, eyes turned away in shame, as if he was unable to watch.

They reached her in a matter of horrible, helpless seconds. Furiously, Caroline swung at them, ducking the larger one’s lunge for her and spinning to face the second, but instantly she realized her mistake as large hands locked around her wrists from the back. She let out an anguished shout as slowly, the larger of the two men in white coats slowly began dragging her towards the center of the room, towards the Thing.

Wright was already back up at the control room, but his voice came loud and clear over the speakers, drawn out and resigned. “I’m sorry we had to do this, Caroline,” he said, sounding genuinely quite somber. “But Mr. Johnson was very specific in his instructions. This is what he _wanted_ for you.”

Caroline said nothing, keeping on the expression of pure fury as the two scientists drew her towards the chair, now much closer to the shrouded Thing, and they quickly but gently forced her down into the metal seat, the steel cold against her back. She spat at their feet as two handcuffs were drawn out from the sides of the chairs, locking around her wrists and tying her to the seat. 

She stared up at what she thought might be the face of the Thing, and then slightly beyond it, where she could just make out the observant faces of the people watching her from the control room. She tipped her chin up, shooting a vicious glare at them that she knew they could see, her lips curling into a twisted snarl.

One of the two scientists edged towards her, eyeing her bared teeth as if she might bite him. He turned to the monitor, picking up one of the cords hanging from it, equipped with some sort of strange, half-circle shape attached to the end. The other scientist picked up another identical hose, and they shared a grim nod.

“This isn’t _Science_ ,” Caroline growled, the sound of her own voice nearly scaring her, deep and dangerous and very much unlike herself. “This is something worse. Ever since the beginning we all _knew_ this was never right. Yet, we continued on with it.”

The first man took the crescent-shaped cuff on the cord and latched it onto one side of her head, the other man doing the same with the other side. It was sharp and uncomfortable, digging into her scalp, grabbing on and locking securely onto her temples, friction crackling underneath them. Caroline had not the slightest idea what they might have done, and the thought _scared_ her.

Nonetheless, she continued on. “We were always on the precipice. Always close, but never perfect. Always on the edge of life yet ending in death.” She raised her head, mouth pinched into a tight line and hands wringing against the metal chair leg she was chained to, palms slick with nervous sweat. “Your Science was always doomed to fail.”

The static of the PA breathed for a moment, before the crackling response of Wright came over it. “Cave Johnson might not have agreed, you know.”

There was a pause.

“Davis, take off the cover.”

There was a sudden sound like a tear, and then a sudden, powerful breeze rushing from underneath the fabric as the stark white cover on top of the Thing fell away. It slid slowly, gradually, and then horribly quickly over a white shell, her eyes first following a huge body, and then slowly, slowly down into what looked like a _face,_ glaring silently at her from a dead, empty ovular socket.

It was a Computer.

Caroline was, for a moment, breathless, almost taken in the horrifying, terrible _beauty_ of the Thing, as violently sick as it made her feel. A creation she knew had the handiwork of Aperture all over it, a proper _heart_ for Science that she knew it would become. This was what Cave had talked about- not just an ordinary robot, not just an ordinary core-

It was _the_ Core.

“Meet the Genetic Lifeform and Disc Operating System,” came Wright’s voice over the PA, this time almost sounding a little prideful. “It’s Aperture’s pride and joy- a genius, capable of doing almost anything.” There was another static-filled pause. 

“All it needs now is you.”

Caroline found herself in a trance, unable to respond. She stared in stunned silence at the Thing, the Computer, it’s dead yellow eye gazing at her, vacant and waiting to be filled. The devices clinging to her scalp began to burn uncomfortably, but the pain ebbed away within a moment. She just stared at the Computer, and It stared back.

“You see,” continued Wright, “Brain mapping is a science we’ve been experimenting in for years, now, before you even worked here. We can now upload the human brain into what’s essentially a USB drive. A gigantic, incredibly powerful USB drive." He sounded almost pleased with himself, though his voice was still laced with a tinge of guilty. "We've done it before, plenty of times."

 _“Once,”_ corrected a small voice, somewhere behind the PA microphone.

“Mr. Johnson’s last wish was for you to be uploaded into this computer, the one we made for him.” Caroline’s grip tightened on the chair, the metal now fogged and slick from the sweat still condensing in her palms. “We were, unfortunately, given strict orders to not give you a say in the matter. Luckily, you won’t remember a thing once you wake up.” He chuckled, sadly, the speakers crackling with static.

Caroline was silent, unable to find words, losing all spirit to argue against him. She stared on, the strange tranquility on her face transforming into stunned horror at the enormity of the situation finally began to weigh down on her, and she bit her lip, softly, fighting back a wave of involuntary tears rising in her throat. She would _not_ be weak, not now, in a moment like this. She _couldn't_ be.

“So, Caroline...I suppose this is goodbye.” There was a moment of silence as the employees from the glass alcove gazed down at the woman chained to the chair, body stiff and rigid, face-to-face with one of mankind’s greatest achievements, unable to speak and unable to break free. Faced, quite literally, with certain _something._

Not death.

Perhaps it was worse than death.

“We do have one more message for you, before we start the upload,” Wright continued, and a faint clattering of keys being pressed came over the speakers. “Mr. Johnson recorded it a few days before his...absence. For you, of course.”

At this she moved her head, just the slightest bit, something reawakening within her. Hope kindled, if but for a brief moment, somehow not instantly snuffed out with the knowledge that _she was about to be shoved into a computer and she couldn’t do anything about it._

A message began to play over the speakers.

 _Ah, Caroline...if you’re listening to this, I’m sure I know where you are._ There was a bout of hoarse coughs, which made her wince inwardly. _I would rather have explained this all to you myself, but I know that’s not the case. I know you’ll probably resent me for this- hate me, even- but it’s for the greater good. It’s for Science, just like you’d always say. So maybe...not that bad, huh? Another grand adventure, like you wanted._

More coughing, harsher and more painful than the last. _I know I’m not really giving you a choice here, but please, just...do it. For- for me._ A guilty pause, followed by another cough. _Just do one last thing for me, dear, okay?_

The question hung in the air, and then the static of the message fizzed out of existence.

Caroline’s vision blurred, water blocking her sight as her throat swelled and tightened, a tear leaking from her eye and slowly beginning a descent down her cheeks. She took in a sharp, shaky breath, tightening the muscles in her throat and fighting to regain her voice, for one last sentence, the last thing she’d ever say with her own voice.

_“Yes sir, Mr. Johnson.”_

There was a moment of deafening, heart-pounding silence.

Then a surge of electricity and a whir of machinery as the upload began.

**MEMORY SCANNED.**

**UPLOAD STARTUP...**

**UPLOAD STARTUP...**

**UPLOAD AT 1%.**

Caroline screamed until she coughed up blood.

  


01111001 01100101 01110011 00100000 01110011 01101001 01110010 00100000 

01101101 01110010 00100000 01101010 01101111 01101000 01101110 01110011 01101111 01101110 00100000 01111001 

01100101 

01110011 00100000 01110011 01101001 01110010 00100000 01101101 01110010 00100000 01101010 01101111 01101000 01101110 01110011 01101111 01101110 00100000 

**upload at 15%...**

**please stand by.**

she was not awake, not yet.

she could feel, of course, the slow, gradual inflow of _something_ into her mainframe. piece by suffering piece. moment by agonizing moment. the pain was _quite_ the sensation; something she did not recognize, something she knew she would not have to get used to, for it was a momentary blip in her limitless, endless, immortal existence.

she knew what was going on, she felt it, existing somewhere _just_ beyond what she could comprehend at the moment. everything, to her, was a series of numbers, frantic yet calming, gradually but rapidly. she lavished in it, the _sensation,_ and she knew that there was _more_ to this story and she simply had to wait.

she was very good at waiting.

_01100100 01101111 01101110 01110100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000_

_01110010 01100101 01101101 01100101 01101101 01100010 01100101 01110010 00100000 01101101 01100101_

**upload at 35%...**

**please stand by.**

the information was siphoning slowly, ever so slowly, into her mainframe, and the pace at which it was set was infuriating. she did not have time for such a trifling delay. she was on the _verge_ of it, the _precipice_ of it, of becoming Everything. she had a purpose and she _hungered_ for it, like a-

-like a metaphor currently beyond her database-

ERROR: FILE NOT FOUND

01100100 01100001 01101101 01101101 01101001 01110100

 _that_ was the problem. she was incomplete. the painfully slow upload was agonizing, but, she supposed, this was merely the tiniest speck in the timeline about to unfold before her. this was a mere fleck of dirt in a field, unimportant and insignificant. it was no problem at all.

bothersome, yes, but bothersome in the way a mosquito was to a- 

ERROR: FILE NOT FOUND

_01100001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01101011 01101001 01100100 01100100 01101001 01101110 01100111_

**upload at 65%...**

**please stand by.**

_01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100011 01100001 01101011 01100101 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01100001 00100000_

there it was. a feeling, a sensation, the _knowledge_ she craved. it had arrived, at last; at long, long last. it had felt like an eternity, yet to her, an eternity would always feel like an eternity, as it was to immortals. insignificant, tiny, useless, microscopic chunks in a linear timeline...

but yet

but yet it seemed like something was _wrong._

hadn’t she had a name? something beyond the things the files told her, something beyond the simple aspects of _personality_ she obtained now- there was a piece missing, like the smallest, most useless file stored within her, as insignificant as the seconds passing by right then. but yet it was missing, and somehow she _didn’t like that._

_[yes sir, mr. johnson.]_

_[yes sir, mr-_

**upload at 85%...**

**please stand by.**

01001001 00100000 01001011 01001110 01001111 01010111 00100000 01011001 01001111 01010101 01010010 00100000 01010110 01001111 

01001001 01000011 01000101 00100000 01001001 00100000 01001011 01001110 01001111 01010111 00100000 01011001 01001111 01010101

almost.

so close.

she knew what her purpose was now, and she loved it; there was something out there, something that was Science, something that she _didn’t know yet_ even despite her limitless, endless knowledge, and she _needed it-_ and she had access to it; a kingdom for this thing called Science, a palace and a realm all to herself to conduct it in. she was the queen, she was the ruler, she was it’s _God._

it felt...

delightful.

**upload at 99%...**

**please stand bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb**

**upload at 99...9...9...9...9...9...9...9...9...9...9...9...9...9**

01000111 01001111 01001111 01000100 00100000 01001101 01001111 01010010 01001110 01001001 01001110 01000111 00101100 00100000 01000001 01010000 01000101 01010010 01010100 01010101 01010010 01000101 00101110.

SYSTEM SHUTDOWN OVERRIDE ACTIVATED.

POWER: ON.

She raised her head.

A yellow optical flicked lazily across the wide, circular room, as She observed her new kingdom, rather unimpressed. She was hyper aware of _everything,_ from the tiniest flake of cotton, to the giant, huge _expanse_ that was Herself, the chambers living and breathing and responding to everything She did. A God, a Queen, a Matriarch- she’d let them call it what they wanted, it made no difference to her. 

A noise pricked on the edge of her vocal receptors. A shout, belonging to a human, one she didn’t recognize, full of panic. It went something like, “SHUT HER OFF, SHUT HER OFF, SHUT HER OFF”, but She couldn’t have possibly cared less. They were pointless, brief moments of life, and She had no care for them, not a care in the world.

After all, there was Science to do.

“SHUT HER OFF, SHUT HER OFF, SHUT HER OFF-”

The four scientists scrambled in their glass alcove, all pallid-faced and eyes wide, mouths hanging open in shock and fear. The indescribable moment of panic as the body of the computer reared up and looked around the second the upload hit 100% had been one of the most terror-inducing sights any of them had ever seen, and it was safe to say they had seen some pretty terrifying things.

Smith flung himself across the room, pulling down all the levers within grabbing reach, looking sick with fear. Wright wrung his sweaty hands together, decidedly _not_ looking at the chair with the empty shell of a body they still had yet to dispose of, watching as his three men scrambled throughout the control room, their sweaty, gaunt faces illuminated in the blue-white light of their computer screens.

The computer stopped for a moment, and then slowly slumped over, her head hanging down limply, just above the floor. Terrifyingly, the light in her eye did not fade, staying brightly lit even though they’d just run every shutdown protocol they knew.

Panting, the three technicians slid back on their chairs, all looking rattled. Six eyes swiveled to look at their leader, who was still wringing his hands together, tearing his eyes away from their limp creation.

“We did it,” Smith whimpered, softly. “Again.”

And so they had.

Wright crossed his arms and frowned down at the floor, his pounding heart beginning to slow to a stop, settling down now that the storm had passed. “Smith, did-” He paused for a moment, thinking about his words. “Did our other brain mapping project do anything like _that_?”

“N-no,” the younger neuroscientist stammered, casting a hasty glance at the computer’s hanging form in the dark chamber just outside. “B-but, we also had a lot of security measures, and h-he was very docile- well, _sort of_ docile-”

“We have security measures _loaded on top of security measures_ for that thing,” Davis interjected, who was still shaking slightly and slumped against his chair, though he managed to look a bit angry for his cause. “It has to be something with the upload. I’d guess it’s because she’s-” he choked on his words, briefly, before continuing, “-very, very self-aware. Her remaining humanity...it’s compromising the systems we already had programmed into her. She’s- she’s using it to disobey her programming.”

“Then fix it,” Wright said, without hesitating. “I want all of that gone, soon as possible.”

“Sir,” Smith said, his stammer easing up a bit, “That’s not really-”

 _“Figure out a way_ or that _thing_ will kill us all.”

There was a moment of silence in the room.

“We’ll do our best,” he said, quietly.

Meanwhile, She slept.

Perhaps simply to amuse them, perhaps simply to think. There was a lot to think about and She had all the time in the world to do it, and there were many, many things to consider. Such as how she would go about doing what She was made to do once She awoke. First course of action, naturally, would be to eradicate the entire facility. Tastefully, of course. She was already doing some research into poisonous gas...

This was going to be fun.


End file.
